BJP leaders upset with 'biased' media coverage

Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party are visibly upset with the kind of coverage the party and its leaders have been getting in leading newspapers in New Delhi and elsewhere. They have demanded to know, from the reporters of the offending newspapers, on what basis a particular story has been filed.

Some of them were particularly upset with the comments made by a leading national daily, edited by a well known journalist who was once known for his proximity to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

"Who wrote the report saying our party president Rajnath Singh is a big bore?" an agitated BJP leader asked another reporter from the same newspaper.

Meanwhile, the party is confident of winning the Gujarat Assembly elections.

"We are winning the elections in Gujarat," said BJP leader Sushma Swaraj. According to her, Gujarat chief mnister Narendra Modi is capable of dealing with his opponents.

"I have visited Gujarat twice and now I will go to Himachal Pradesh before returning to Gujarat," she said.

BJP sources say that Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha L K Advani will be spending more time in Gujarat as the party is assured of winning the electoral battle in Himachal Pradesh, where it hopes to return to power with Prem Kumar Dhumal as its chief minister.

"Our friends in the media should look at these things without tainted glasses. We are ruling in Gujarat. We are ruling in Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar along with the Janata Dal - United. We have got two MP seats in Arunachal Pradesh. We have done well along with Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and in all the southern states barring Kerala," said a BJP leader

The party has also taken a serious note of the advertisement issued by former Gujarat chief minister Suresh Mehta against Narendra Modi and promised to do something about it.